Dye
by Stalker of Stories
Summary: After Voldemort's defeat, Harry has escaped for some well deserved R&R. Karakura, Japan seems like a peaceful place... until he's exorcised from his body by a shinigami and is possessed by the last horcrux. One-shot


Warnings: Crude language (and lots of it), first attempt at writing Bleach characters, potential for mild OoC, one-shot (nonnegotiable), character death, violence, spoilers for both series. There's not exactly a particular point when this takes place. It's pre-Seireitei arc, and post Grand Fisher, but that's it.

Disclaimers: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling, Scholastic, Warner Bros, and associates, of which I am not one. Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite, Shounen Jump, and associates, of which I am not one. So, basically, I don't own any of the characters and such. I'm just playing in the sand box ;)

Dye

Harry Potter was minding his own business. Really. He wasn't snooping into plots of things that he shouldn't be involved in, he wasn't sneaking about under an invisibility cloak, and he certainly wasn't out to save the British Wizard World from snake-faced megalomaniacs with daddy-complexes.

That was _so_ a month ago.

No, Harry Potter was strolling down the street in the middle of the night because he could do so without fear of attack by Death Eaters. It was three in the morning – his mind supplied him with the information that this was the "Dead Hour" – and streetlights buzzed overhead as they lit his path in twenty-foot circles of light with twenty-foot gaps of darkness in between. He was on vacation – a well deserved year-long retreat that no one in Britain knew he was taking until he was already gone – and enjoying the sights in his current vacation-spot of choice.

Japan was a lovely place, he felt, very peaceful in the wilderness and the height of modern society in the cities while still being fairly quaint in suburbs and farming communities. And, as far as he was from Britain, his face wasn't as easily recognized, and Japanese wizards weren't obsessed with him.

Not once had he had some random witch or wizard put a thong in his pocket with their name and floo address on it in the past month. Not once had he been accosted by mobs and groped in places he didn't realize would be considered groping-territory. No one had tried to cause a scandal, there were no crazed fangirls/boys, and best of all, he could go to an ice cream parlor in the middle of the day without having to worry about paparazzi.

Truly, this had to be heaven.

Unfortunately, as Harry stepped into one of the many large gaps of darkness, the world decided that his life wasn't chaotic enough, probably because he'd already defeated Voldemort.

A couple of teenagers were standing under a street light about forty meters ahead. Harry couldn't make them out well at this distance, but he could see that one was tall with strawberry blond hair, the other was short with black hair. He couldn't make out much else, though it wasn't at all hard to see the blond one had a giant sword strapped to his back. Was that even legal?

Apparently they noticed him too, and they didn't like him because suddenly they were running at him. So Harry did the only thing he could do; he turned around and ran back the way he came.

Harry was a very fast runner. He always had been, and while he wasn't Olympic level or anything, he was certainly faster than most any other person his age. The fact that he was suddenly cornered by two teens who looked a few years younger than him made him extra wary, and a little freaked out considering they had caught up to him after only a few streetlights.

He freaked out enough that he forgot he could apparate away, but such is life.

"You sure this is it?" The strawberry blond one asked. Close up, Harry could see he had a tight, gruff look about him, like he was trying to look angry or very focused all the time. He wore a black kimono and hakama, with a white sash and a ridiculously large sword was slung over his back. It was easily as tall as him and Harry was pretty sure it could cut a horse in half, assuming it wasn't just for show.

"Positive," the black haired teen – a small girl without much of a figure despite her apparent age, Harry could now tell – was looking at a mobile phone in her hand, glancing over at Harry a few times just to be sure. The stoic look on her face made Harry a bit shifty. She was wearing flannel pajamas, which Harry knew was _not_ normal. People don't just walk around the streets in pajamas and stalk people.

Well, maybe she did, but not normal people.

"Well, it can see us," commented the blond, "So... I guess it has to be. But... he doesn't seem like Grand Fisher so maybe it's like Kon..." Harry twitched slightly.

"'It' happens to be a 'he' and is right here, y'know!" Harry snapped. Fear forgotten for the moment, he stood up straight and furrowed his brow. "Who the hell do you think you are, chasing after people at random, huh?" He was completely ignored of course, but apparently that didn't matter much in the grand scheme of things.

"Seems easy enough," the blond strode forward and Harry took a step back, preparing to draw his wand... yet somehow, the blond was faster. Suddenly his sword was off his back and the butt was pushing against Harry's forehead, right on the scar.

The next thing the wizard knew, he was on the ground, and he could hardly breathe. Had he been hit by some sort of asphyxiation curse when the sword struck his forehead? Hell, everything hurt. He brought a hand up to his chest to rub away some of the ache... and felt a chain.

"Wha-" He stared at his chest for a moment and gaped. "What the hell?" He grabbed the chain in both hands as he brought himself to a seated position on the asphalt, following the chain with his eyes to his own body, which was standing up, twirling his wand in one hand.

Harry had just been exorcized from his own body.

_Fuck_.

"Hm," the voice came from Harry's body, but it wasn't Harry's voice. It was higher pitched and sibilant, cold and threatening; it wasn't quite spot on, but Harry could easily recognize the voice of Voldemort as it eschewed from his own vocal chords.

_Double fuck._

"I really must thank you, Shinigami," Voldemort drawled, "for getting rid of that cumbersome boy. Allow me to – Ow!" Voldemort grabbed at his forehead as Harry tugged at the chain. It had curled over Voldemort's shoulder, so Harry had assumed it fastened at the chest like it did on his end, but apparently not.

Unlike Harry, the Dark Lord had not forgotten about apparation, and he took Harry's body with him.

Not Harry's soul, however, which was still sprawled on the street, grasping the thin chain that spouted from his chest and now seemed to run off to... somewhere. Where, he could not say since it rounded the next corner. And it was pulled tight. The two teens stared.

Harry, meanwhile, glared.

"You just had to do... whatever the fuck you just... did, didn't you?" he growled, agitated. Each breath was shallow and rattled as he drew it in, like he had asthma or something. "Now the... last piece of the bloody Dark... Lord is running amok with my body; thank... you _very much_... Fucking fuck!" He yelled this into the night, though he knew no one could hear him because he was dead. Except the teens, since they could apparently see him.

"Idiot! Now we have to go chase down the Hollow!" The girl snapped and looked on the verge of smacking the boy, though she restrained herself.

"That... wasn't a very smart move, was it?" the blond asked.

"No shit, Sherlock," Harry grumbled. He wheezed slightly as he worked to stand. It should _not_ be this hard to breathe. He grasped at the chain again as he staggered to his feet. Ow fuck... "What were you lot trying... to do, anyway? Was I... supposed to be exorcized... or killed or whatever the fuck... you've done to me?" In the back of his mind, Harry wondered if he'd ever cursed so much in his life, even in the final battle against Voldemort. The situation warranted it.

"There were reports of a Hollow possessing a human body or a gigai, and Rukia said it was you," the blond indicated the girl. "I was trying to drive the Hollow out, but I didn't think there was a human soul still in the body."

Harry's glare didn't abate. "Fucking..." he coughed. "Ugh. I don't know what a... Hollow is. But... I was possessed by a... horcrux. A fragment of soul... from a megalo... maniacal mass murderer. Now... he has my body... and my fucking wand... and I'm bloody DEAD!" He coughed again. It hadn't hurt much when his body was nearby, Voldemort or no, but now it was like he was a smoker for thirty years on three packs a day or something. The chain was pulling slowly tighter, too.

"Ichigo, if that body is under the control of the Hollow..." Rukia trailed off, her eyes following the chain that attached to Harry's chest. "Let's go."

Suddenly they were running, at a slightly faster pace than could be considered normal – the girl slower than the guy, but he seemed to be tugging her along behind him as he ran. Harry swore a blue streak before staggering forward. Even with the tug of the chain on his chest, it was a great chore to move forward, especially without just keeling over.

_So this is death, huh?_ He winced as his breathing grew harsher and the chain grew tighter than before, presumably his body – now belonging to Voldemort's last horcrux – moving further away. He'd known about the horcrux of course, he had for a month or so before Voldemort's assault on Hogwarts, but the only way anyone could think of to get rid of the horcrux involved killing Harry, and no one wanted to do that. Even as the information of him being the Master of Death came to light, no one could stand the thought.

Until now, Harry had resigned himself to living with the constant prickle of his scar and the occasional scuffle to make sure the horcrux couldn't try to take over his body. Apparently, dying before he reached 18 was his fate or something.

It would have been better if he had just stabbed himself in the forehead with a basilisk fang.

While crossing the street, a truck came pelting at him, and Harry reacted on instinct by moving faster than he had been able to since getting torn from his body... and suddenly moving was a piece of cake. He blinked slowly. His breathing was still a bit haggard... but as soon as he dodged what would have been certain death had he been alive to begin with, he was fine.

What. The. Hell.

Vaguely annoyed by this revelation, Harry glared harshly at the still-tugging chain and started off at a nice jog to follow it to wherever Voldemort was. Right, so... he was dead. That fact was probably firmly established. And that blond guy – Ichigo, what irony for a strawberry blond to be named "strawberry"! – had killed him... entirely on accident of course. The girl, Rukia, didn't even seem to care that Harry was dead.

And then there was what Voldemort had called them. "Shinigami", god of death. So, what? Were they literally the Grim Reaper or something? Rukia didn't seem too intimidating, but she was a lot more calm about the situation than Ichigo.

Harry sighed and continued jogging. He'd catch up eventually... hopefully.

* * *

It didn't take long to realize that his spirit body didn't get tired as quickly as he did. Jogging barely even affected him, so Harry ended up sprinting. It took even less time to realize that, now he was moving closer to his body faster, he was actually getting more energized. Curious, he picked up his pace and decided that yes, he could run faster without a body than with.

Not that that was worth the whole "being dead and Voldemort having the body" thing, but...

Well, Harry knew pretty easily when he'd gotten near to his body. Not because of him feeling a lot better or any sort of phantom pain in his scar, but because a building exploded.

And here he had been thinking Karakura was a nice quiet town.

Harry's metaphysical body wasn't much lighter than his real one, but he could move easier than before and had no trouble in vaulting over the low fence that stood between him and where his body faced the sword-wielding boy. The girl was far off to the side, looking only slightly concerned.

But stranger than that, Voldemort was facing Harry, red eyes glimmering despite the backlight of the flames and the great green smoky Dark Mark that hung in the air. And he didn't seem to notice Harry at all, or the chain that was came directly out of his forehead to Harry's chest. It was like he couldn't see Harry, which was ridiculous since...

But was it ridiculous? This "shinigami" didn't seem dead, so it was probably actually some specialized wizarding profession that Harry didn't know about. He and the girl could both see Harry even though he was dead.

That didn't mean Voldemort could.

Harry, however, seemed to be able to affect Voldemort despite this. Now that he was so close, the chain had shortened a lot, but it had also slackened so that it was waving over the floor. As the dark wizard in Harry's body ducked and dove around, he seemed incapable of stepping on the chain.

And, as had already been shown just after the separation, if Harry tugged...

Voldemort winced at the exact moment he had seemed about to apparate out of the way of a sword blow and instead got clipped on the shoulder. Harry breathed in quickly through clenched teeth as he felt the sword bite. Still, better that Voldemort die with Harry than just the young wizard. He didn't mind too much.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Apparently the Shinigami, Ichigo, did mind. "If you interfere I might sever your Chain of Fate and actually kill you!" He was glaring, brow more furrowed than it had been before, and he was completely faced away from Voldemort, even if his sword was at the ready. Voldemort was going to capitalize on this, but Harry tugged on the chain again, and the Dark Lord hissed angrily, gripping the base of the chain without realizing it.

"Who are you talking to, Shinigami?" Voldemort's voice sounded so wrong coming from Harry's body, and it was slightly more husky from what was likely minor smoke inhalation. "Avada Kadavra!" The spell was hurled in Harry's general direction, but just by following Ichigo's line of sight it can't have hit Harry anyway. The chain-link fence behind Harry made a screeching noise as part of it was destroyed.

"If it'll be easier to take down that bastard, I don't care if you turn my body into mush," Harry informed Ichigo as he walked closer. "Since I have yet to find a way to kill him without killing me, I'll just have to die. I'm no great loss."

The shinigami looked aghast. "But you -"

"If that's what he wants, let him," Rukia called from her "safe" place. "He's given you permission to kill the Hollow rather than expel it. No human would make such an offer if it weren't really okay."

Harry wished that the girl wouldn't be so flippant about _his_ life, but he was the one who said it in the first place. He yanked the chain again to stop Voldemort from attacking Ichigo, who was still conflicted. Really, it should be straightforward, shouldn't it? Harry didn't want to die, but better dead than Voldemort causing a ruckus, ergo he didn't _need_ to live.

"If I could be sure that I could kick you and it would connect, I would," Harry deadpanned, "now kill the bastard before he gets used to the scar pains." Ichigo gave Harry look even as he brought up his meat cleaver to block a rather vicious looking purple spell that Harry hadn't yanked in time to prevent.

And now Harry was getting pissed off because damn it, he was _trying_ to be noble and this asshole wasn't letting him.

"Kill the damn body!" Harry yelled with a particularly vicious yank that sent his body stumbling forward a step.

The next thing Harry knew, his "Chain of Fate" thing was cut near the fase and Voldemort's head had been lopped clean off. It was very strange to see one's own corspe lying in a small courtyard while backlit by a burning building. It was even stranger to see what was apparently Voldemort's soul separate from it and get its forehead stabbed by a giant sword.

When a giant gate-thing appeared and dragged Voldemort into what was undoubtedly Hell, Harry paled slightly.

"I'm... I'm not going to end up in Hell too, am I?" He asked slowly, eyeing the pair of teenagers who had gotten him into this mess in the first place.

"Probably not," Rukia had put her cell phone away (where "away" was when she was wearing pocketless pajamas was anyone's guess) and had joined Harry and Ichigo by the bleeding corpse. "Have fun in Soul Society. As a wizard, you would have an easy time at the Shinigami Academy if you wanted to enroll."

Harry had no time to reply before he found his head was, for the second time that night, hit by the hilt of the giant sword and he phased out of existence.

Harry Potter, Shinigami, eh? It had a certain ring to it...

**Author's Note: I know, not too creative with the title... but I wasn't feeling creative anyway, so nyah. This idea has been mulling around in my head since I first started to read Bleach... so toward the end of July (yes, I'm a complete newbie to the fandom, now shush). I have another HP/Bleach idea, but I dunno if I'll get to it or not since it'd be multi-chapter and I have sooo many other bunnies right now. I didn't really try to hard at writing this, so it's substandard... but at least the bunny's out of my head *sigh***

**Now if only I could do something about the rest of those damn bunnies... I'm considering just putting some up for adoption so they'll leave me alone.**


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